Presidents and Mythology

The following was Judge Napolitano’s closing argument on his FreedomWatch Presidents’ Day Special in 2011.

Does the government work on behalf of the people or do the people exist for the benefit of government? Is history a recollection of things that have actually happened, or a narrative deployed to legitimize power and the crimes that led to the acquisition of that power? Tonight, on this President’s Day, state-sanctioned history, the Presidents of the United States, and you.

In the last hour we’ve heard that some of the Presidents often billed by historians and the public as “the greatest” were anything but. To be fair, it’s difficult to be a great person when your job is to head an organization like the State that is rooted in deception, theft, and murder. And we know from Lord Acton that no great man is a good man.

From the beginning, any claim that the American government is good because some Americans are exceptional does not make any sense. The individual virtues of human beings cannot possibly extend to the government. By definition, the government lies, cheats, and steals. After all, it has no resources of its own, only those it appropriates from the people. No one may lawfully compete with it. We are forced to pay its bills and accept its so-called services. There is no escaping it. The ideas behind a nation may be exceptional, but they are not manifested by the government. And, of course, we must never mistake the government for the people it claims to represent.

So, why does the official history of our Presidents seem like so much mythology and legend when viewed side by side with what really happened? Is history being deliberately manipulated to whitewash the crimes of the past and manufacture the consent of the people? Or is the whitewashing of history simply a natural reaction by a people and a culture that would rather not come to terms with their not so rosy past? It’s both. It is human instinct to trivialize the dark and the wicked in us and to elevate the good and the honorable in us. But, indeed, the history transmitted to you and your children in government schools has whitewashed all the Presidents but a few. And make no mistake about it, they are government schools; because they all exist at the pleasure of the State so that the government’s version of history becomes the popular version of history. Napoleon understood this when he remarked that history is not the record of what has happened before us, it is the record of what people think has happened before us. The government understands this, too.

Franklin Roosevelt manipulated the United States into World War II for years prior to a declaration of war. The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 was not only not a surprise, but was facilitated by FDR. Abraham Lincoln was a racial supremacist who wanted blacks forcibly removed to Africa. Woodrow Wilson arrested people for speaking German in public. If these facts were as well known as the fiction that has surrounded them, then the information which the government wishes us to accept uncritically about the present day state of affairs would be more vigorously challenged. So here is the lesson: The government has mythologized the past in order to lull us into accepting its version of the present; and the essence of that mythology is the presidency.

When Lincoln stated at Gettysburg that government is of the people, by the people, and for the people, that was government propaganda. The government is not of the people, and it shares none of the characteristics and traits of the people themselves. No less a president than George Washington told us that government is not reason, it is force. Government is a tool, a powerful and a dangerous tool. And so it must be wielded carefully and only when moral, constitutional, necessary, and proper. Government officials are not performing a public service, and they do not regard themselves as public servants. They regard themselves as our masters.

Get the book here

Under the Constitution and the law, as I’ve said time and again on this show, they are employees of the people and ought to serve at our pleasure. When we lionize our government officials, be they Presidents or postal workers, when we mythologize and deify them, when we build temples to worship them, we violate the nature of the service they ought to be performing. Jefferson would be scandalized at the temples we have built for him. Lincoln and FDR would no doubt welcome theirs. If we want to take our government back, we must begin by taking an honest account of what our government has done, ostensibly in our names, and reject the untrue narratives it instead foists upon us. The truth shall set us free.

All presidents but Jefferson have argued that their first job was to keep us safe. All presidents but Jefferson were wrong. If you read the Constitution, you will see that the President’s first job – as Jefferson understood well – is to keep us free.

9 thoughts on “Presidents and Mythology”

A TV event that shook the world. I noticed in 2012 that Fox pulled the show on the day before President’s Day 2012. I’ve written a number of pieces for The Hill making the case that the American discussion is primarily one between Jefferson and Hamilton based primarily on an essay by historian Frank Owsley, one of the Vanderbilt Agrarians, titled “The Irrepresible Conflict.” Hamilton was the brains behind Washington although we were taught that Jefferson was – Jefferson was the brains behind America. When Washington teamed p with Hamilton after Jay’s Treaty he left behind his fellow Virginians and yielded all power to Hamilton’s New York and it centralized vision of one world, one power. Jefferson and Madison never spoke again to W. and they despised each other. Before war and dominance by Washington/Hamilton culminating in the series events at Cemetary Ridge, collective neurosis occurred and plagues us still today. It is the only explainaition (collective neurosis and compensation) why anyone would build a monument 555. High to dominate the landscape, using an ancient Templar model which for hundreds of years been the symbol of the Christ. Y’ll have a great Jefferson’s Birthday (March 4).

When WE spend our time focused on Presidents are we looking at them and not ourselves for no man may rain superior. In fact no life force upon this earth has any more authority than another and to think it, is simply a lie to self.

WE are all created equal as “Free will” “the deciding” LIFE in a nut shell, capable of mistakes and lessons to learn and grow.

By this we all have a right to life around this planet, we have the ability to create Liberty for ourselves “Freedom from ALL Despotic Governments, state, Federal or global”. WE are able to Pursue our ideas and create achievements to support each other because when we do and we live in a supporting laughing world is happiness truly achieved.

Governments are to be limited by Constitutions that allow WE the People, not to control us or authorize us or to dictate to us. But WE the People must recognize OUR responsibility in this act.

As for law, there is one law above all other laws on this planet and it states; treat others as you wish to be treated. Living by this law is the law of the land and assures respect by each of us and when this law is broken is respect lost between us.

It is not presidents who build nations, it is producing people who respect one another that do and when this is lost does the ugliness of false authority rear its ugly head.

Simply put the mythology is a creation by lawyers, judges and presidents who created false elusions by stating to us they are our authority, our authorization to move about upon this earth when in fact they were given NO such authorization because no person has the authority to authorize this kind of authority ever.

Thomas Jefferson created the only document that stated the whole truth and nothing but the truth as he lived it, it was called the Declaration of Independence and it fully meant the STATE of Being independent by CHOICE and what to do when this is miss appropriated. Since NONE of you have applied this principal is exactly why we are in this state of Dependence today. The only person you need to look at on this planet is YOU and your own choice and agreement to look at some dumb ass president who has no such respect for you and surely no authorization to dictate a thing.

I feel people worship of any kind is degrading to the human spirit since it elevates others above us. That is self-degrading by definition. I think people should have self-esteem in themselves to realize that their worth is equal to anyone elses. That would include presidents, rock stars, sports stars, and etc.